CURRENT PROJECTS

Troped: The Stories We Live By (nonfiction)

Troped: The Stories We Live By explores the narratives that shape our sense of self, our understanding of other people, and our beliefs about how the world works. Long before we realize it, we inherit stories—about what love should feel like, what happiness should look like, and what it means to live a meaningful life. We also invent stories of our own about who we are, how we got to be that way, and what kinds of futures are possible for someone like us. Over time, they start to feel like fact.

Through a blend of memoir, cultural criticism, and psychological inquiry, Troped asks why certain narratives become so powerful and why we cling to them long after they stop serving us. It explores what happens when the stories that once organized a life begin to fracture and the possibilities that emerge as a result. At its heart, Troped is an invitation to readers to reconsider the stories they have mistaken for truth.

A History of New Bomer (novel)

One late August morning, the small mountain town of Bomer woke up alone. There was no power. In fact, electrical devices no longer worked at all. Scouts sent beyond the town limits never returned. As supplies dwindled and winter edged closer, Bomer fractured along familiar lines. On one side stood The Town, its mayor demanding centralized supplies, rationing, and strict obedience. On the other was The Homestead, a living-history women’s retreat founded by Barbara Oxendale, a descendant of the town’s founders, and run by her “daughters”—women who shared her belief in traditional skills, shared labor, and collective leadership. For a time, the Homestead and the Town lived uneasily side by side. But as winter deepened and tensions rose, the women of the Homestead were forced to defend themselves. During the tragic event now known as the Long Night, Barbara was killed, but her Daughters endured. From Barbara’s sacrifice, a New Bomer was born: a society dedicated to ensuring that the violences of the old world would never rise again.

That is the official history, at least, the one the Daughters will celebrate during New Bomer’s upcoming fifteenth anniversary, the so-called Crystal Celebration. But Marnie knows another. She lived through the Event and its aftermath. She remembers long winters where survival, love, and violence blurred into one another. When a teenage girl named Lily seeks her out—drawn as much to the silences surrounding the town’s history as to Marnie herself—Marnie is forced to confront not only what really happened during the Long Night, but what she herself did to survive it.